Votes and Consequences

OOoooooh I'm scared
if Roe v. Wade gets overturned then abortion will stop being a federal issue and will become a State issue. Do you really see individual states overturning the legality of abortion. Others writers for this blog have already noted that public opinion makes it unlikely that the State legislatures will make abortion illegal.

You know, for abortion being such a "religious right" issue, you lefties are making an awfully big deal about it.

It is quite unclear what Reaganite might mean by his "'culture of death'." Apparently the scare quotes he puts around the term indicates that it has some curious meaning, only it is a puzzle what that might be.

It is used in the context of a discussion of anti-abortion. Whether abortion is legal or illegal in the USA is unlikely to have a significant impact on the frequency of the non-spontaneous deaths of fetuses carried by pregnant women. It would likely increase the number of pregnant women who die from incompetent abortions; that happened a good bit in the pre-Roe v. Wade days. So if one is concerned to minimize the number of deaths of human entities one should work to keep Roe v. Wade.

After seeing mention of a culture of death I naturally expected some criticism of the penchant of one candidate or the other to pursue preemptive wars that kill lots of people on both sides, or to try to justify some war we are already involved in that has been killing tens of thousands of human beings. Those lives are all just as sacred in God eyes are your life or mine. But not that was apparently irrelevant to what was meant by "'culture of death'."

I also expected to see some attention to the poverty, starvation, diseases that are killing millions of people every year in this world. Clearly those who ignore that sort of phenomena are caught up in a culture of death--regarding the deaths of those millions as unimportant politically or otherwise. But that too was apparently irrelevant to what was meant by "'culture of death'."

The deaths of thousands of children and adults in this country due to pollutants poured into the atmosphere, and waters, by under regulated factories and plants should be attended to by those concerned about our culture of death. One would expect to see them working to prevent such deaths. But that did not seem to be relevant to what Reaganite meant by "'culture of death'."

So what could be coherently attached to that phrase as used by Reaganite that would render it meaningful?

It is clear that what the phrase "culture of death" straightforwardly means raises number of very important political issues that should be addressed in this campaign. It is also far from clear that Reaganite is interested in any of them.

Reaganite in NYC,

Obama attacks traditional marriage and families? You ought to take a look in the book that supposedly describes the "traditional family", the Bible. One-man one-woman Adam and Eve style marriage is hardly the only type of marriage allowed and sanctioned by God in the Bible. Many of the Old Testament heroes and patriarchs were polygamists (King David, King Solomon, Jacob, Moses, etc.) and some of these polygamists had concubines (Solomon, David) or slaves they had sexual relations with (Jacob). Another type of marriage that occurred in the Bible was a levirate marriage, where a man would marry his deceased brother's widow so she would produce an heir for the dead brother (i.e. the story of Onan). God never spoke against any of these alternate marriage structures in the Bible. It is true that God was not happy with Solomon's wives, but it was more the fact that he had foreign wives who wroshipped foreign gods, not that he had multiple wives in and of itself. None of this necessarily mean God or the Bible is down with gay marriage, but it just makes you think a bit differently about what the Bible actually says about marriage and family, and the differences between our modern society and that of the ancient Hebrews.

Also, monogamous heterosexual marriage is not the only form of "traditional" marriage in the world. Anthropologists estimate that up to 75% of the world practices polygamy, and most Muslim countries allow men to marry up to four wives in accordance to Islamic law. Many traditional tribal cultures also practice polygamy. It is common in Himalayan societies for a woman to marry multiple brothers of one family for property and inheritance reasons.

It's not that I am condoning polygamy, but it does not seem too much of a stretch to give legal recognition to a committed and monogamous homosexual relationship when much of the world thinks it's "normal" for one man to be married to multiple women (including some Christian tribes and societies in Africa). And you definitely don't get a picture of the Ward and June Cleaver type of family as the only acceptable type of family by reading the Bible.

The next time a religious person says "We must uphold traditional/Biblical marriage" I'll say "Great! Does this mean I can have 700 wives like King Solomon did?"

Bonnie,

As much as I respect your views, it seems to me that you draw some odd conclusions about gay marriage. For instance, it is completely unfathomable that most heterosexual people will want to marry someone of the same gender after gay marriage is universally accepted and the stigma associated with homosexuality has disappeared. I mean, it might be easier for most people to get along with people of the same sex, but I doubt that many heterosexuals would get aroused by a member of the sme sex. I am a heterosexual male, and I would only ever want to marry a woman, whether I lived in Massachusetts or Texas (I currently live in Florida, where homosexuality is accepted in some parts of the state and reviled in others). There is just no way I could ever be sexually attracted to another man, no matter what country or culture I lived in, or how well I got along with the man in question. It's not like straight couples stopped getting married in Massachusetts and California after they started letting gay couples get married there.

Regarding Shmuley Boteach, he is rather liberal on the issue of homosexuality for an Orthodox Jewish rabbi. He opposes gay marriage, but supports civil unions (with many of the legal and secular benefits of marriage) for gay couples. He believes that homosexual unions cannot be equated with heterosexual unions, but he also says that homosexuals who have no inclination towards the opposite sex should form monogamous, committed relationships with members of the same gender. What he's saying is while they are not at the level of committed, monogamous heterosexual unions, committed and monogamous homosexual unions are the best option for homosexuals, as committed relationships for homosexuals are a far better option than sexual promiscuity.

PhoenixOrion:

Your response to my 2:31 post yesterday demonstrates an obsession with homosexual marriage and considerable skill at "cherry-picking" passages of Holy Scripture.

You totally overlook the New Testament and you ignore the thrust of Mosaic law in the Old Testament -- both of which express a clear preference by the divine for monogamous heterosexual marriage open to the transmission of human life.

And similarly, the New Testament may express a preference for monogamous heterosexual marriage (or celibacy, in some cases), but it never expressly condemns polygamy as wrong or sinful. Yes, the Apostle Paul did say that "each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband" (1 Corinthians 7:2). But the Greek word for "own" in that sentence doesn't mean "one and only". Marriage can still be considered a sacred covenant between one man and one woman. It's just that the man can have several simultaneous covenants.

And it just doesn't make that much sense to me that if the Bible condemns polygamy, that many of the Bible's greatest heroes (Kings David and Solomon, for instance) were notorious polygamists and God never condemned them for it.

My daughter and her friends are dating young men in college. There is much confusion and many are referring to themselves as bisexual. This is a place my generation would never go; just one generation ago, if a girl had a bad breakup, she'd lick her wounds and try again with another guy. Nowadays, some women in college who have a bad breakup are deciding they "must be gay" and trying again with someone of the same gender! There is no social impetus favoring heterosexuality.

I believe that when so many women are on the pill, their bodies in a "faux pregnancy" mode, they can barely identify their own sex drives. I can envision women living with women and having male/female affairs on the side, especially if they are wanting children. Even women who feel they are 100% heterosexual will have no particular reason to live with a man. Again, it's easier to live with a woman, and you can even borrow her shoes...

I'm sorry I have no direct experience with gay men, although Boteach says they outnumber lesbians...

For the record, Rabbi Boteach blames divorce for the decimation of marriage, saying to blame homosexuals is a "boldface lie."

If you expect some clear thinking from Reaganite, you're in for a disappointment. But I'm sick of the culture wars; they are completely pointless. Here is the bottom line: Are Republicans going to help me get affordable, comprehensive insurance? No. Are the Republicans going to increase regulation so that corporate greed isn't allowed to run unfettered as it has in the past 8 years? No. Are Republicans going to stop American jobs being shipped overseas so that corporations can exploit foreign workers for huge profits, avoiding more stringent American employment laws? No. Are Republicans going to look for ways to decrease our carbon footprint and work towards an oil-free economy? No. Are Republicans going to protect the interests and the dignity of the poor, the minorities, and the children of the poor? No. Are the Republicans going to end this war that is funneling billions of tax dollars that are needed elsewhere into the bottomless hole of an unwinnable war? Hell no. I could go on and on.

This country has seen enough of Republican leadership, if you can call it that. It's time to clean house and bring back the sanity.

Warren Cheswick: "If we are to base our lives on natural law, then there shall be little fidelity and exclusivity of partners ... If you want to talk about natural sexual behavior, then let's do that."

Apparently, Warren Cheswick hasn't a clue what "natural law" means and is confusing it with "natural sexual behavior." Let's not waste time tutoring Warren on "natural law." Warren, spend some time and look it up yourself.